Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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See how [the measure of] the Good is full, my
1 Something has here evidently fallen out in the text.
2 x»P^ Kpifffcas, If, however, we must read Kriffews with the majority of the editors, I cannot understand the various translations. Everard gives " without labour " ; Parthey, " nulla contentione" ; Menard, "sans combat"; Chambers, "without contention." I would, therefore, render it : " See how she hath chased out Unrighteousness without a home " ; for it seems to me that in x<ap\s /crierews we have the exact antithesis of e'Spaer/xo. Righteousness has here her firm seat or abode, and Unrighteousness is thus naturally without a home.
son, upon Truth's coming. For Envy hath gone from us ; and unto Truth is joined the Good as well, with Life and Light.
And now no more doth any torment of the
Darkness venture nigh, but vanquished [all]
have fled with whirring wings.
10. Thou knowest [now], my son, the manner of Rebirth. And when the Ten is come, my son, that driveth out the Twelve, the Birth in understanding1 is complete, and by this Birth we are made into Gods.
Who then doth by His mercy gain this Birth in God, abandoning the body's senses, knows himself [to be of Light and Life 2] and that he doth consist of these, and [thus] is filled with Bliss.
11. Tat. By God made steadfast, father, no longer with the sight my eyes afford I look on things, but with the energy the Mind doth give me through the Powers.3
In heaven am I, in earth, in water, air ; I am in animals, in plants ; I'm in the womb, before the womb, after the womb ; I'm everywhere !
But further tell me this : How are the torments of the Darkness, when they are twelve in number, driven out by the ten Powers ? What is the way of it, Thrice-greatest one ?
1 roep& yeveffts, lit., intellectual birth.
2 Completed from C. H., i. 22.
3 ry 5to Swdfiewv vo-rjriKy
12. Her. This dwelling-place1 through which we have just passed, my son, is constituted from the circle of the types-of-life, this being composed of elements, twelve in number, but of one nature, an omniform 2 idea. For man's delusion there are disunions 3 in them, son, while in their action they are one. Not only can we never part Rashness from Wrath ; they cannot even be distinguished.
According to right reason (logos), then, they4 naturally withdraw once and for all, in as much as they are chased out by no less than ten powers, that is, the Ten.
For, son, the Ten is that which giveth birth to souls. And Life and Light are unified there, where the One hath being from the Spirit. According then to reason (logos) the One contains the Ten, the Ten the One.
13. Tat. Father, I see the All, I see myself in
Mind.
Her. This is, my son, Rebirth — no more to look on things from body's view-point (a thing three ways in space extended),5 . . .6 though this Sermon (Logos) on Rebirth, on which I did not comment * ; — in order that we may not be calumniators 2 of the All unto the multitude, to whom indeed the God Himself doth will we should not.
1 o-KTjj'os, — tent or tabernacle of the human soul. Cf. below, §15.
2 Cf. commentary on G". H., xi. (xii.) 1C.
3 SiaCvyal — the opposite of avfryiai.
4 That is, the Twelve.
5 As opposed to some other dimension, presumably.
6 Some words are evidently missing.
14. Tat. Tell me, 0 father : This Body which is made up of the Powers, is it at any time dissolved ?
Her. Hush, [son] ! Speak not of things impossible, else wilt thou sin and thy Mind's eye be quenched.
The natural body which our sense perceives is far removed from this essential birth.
The first must be dissolved, the last can never be ; the first must die, the last death cannot touch.
Dost thou not know thou hast been born a
God, Son of the One, even as I myself ?
15. Tat. I would, 0 father, hear the Praisegiving with hymn which thou didst say thou heardest then when thou wert at the Eight [the Ogdoad] of Powers.
Her. Just as the Shepherd did foretell [I should], my son, [when I came to] the Eight.3
Well dost thou haste to " strike thy tent," 4 for thou hast been made pure.
1 See § i.
2 5ia£oA.ot, compare § 22. The lacuna probably contained some reference to keeping silence.
3 Cf. G. H., i. 26.
4 \v<rai rb ffKrivos. Gf. above, § 12. The meaning is generally to free oneself from the trammels of the body. Compare the Pythian Oracle concerning Plotinus : " But now since thou hast